


Toy Soldiers

by dickard23



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Fire Nation Royal Family, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-07
Updated: 2015-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-28 14:00:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 17,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2735222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dickard23/pseuds/dickard23
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A young boy asks his mother for a toy soldier. She refuses to get him one. As a child, he doesn't understand why. As an adult, it makes too much sense. There is no such thing as winning a war. There is only losing badly and losing not as badly. When he finally understands what this, he realizes how little the world has really changed after the Hundred Years War.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

Mama, can I get the General Gao doll for my birthday?” an excited five year old asked.

She paused. They had been walking to the market. “I’m sorry Honey,” she said to him. “I can get you anything except that doll.”

“Why?”

 _Too many reasons that she couldn’t tell her young son._ “Because war is bad,” she told him. “It represents the worst in humanity, and when people buy these dolls and give them to their children, they’re glorifying war. They are telling their children that it is good to put on a uniform and to kill, just because the state says so. Your father and I both fought in the Hundred Years War. There’s nothing to glorify.”

Karrupa’s gold eyes could not convince his mother to change her mind. He tried anyway.

His mother ruffled his hair. “When you’re older, you’ll understand.”

Karrupa heard that a lot, especially from his mother, but he also knew how seldom it was for her to change her mind. He and his twin brother, who was with their father this morning, would have to ask for something else for their birthday. They had both wanted that doll. All of the other boys had one, but Karrupa knew he and his brother were not like the other boys. Their mother was different. Why, he still didn't know.

* * *

Things could not be better in the Fire Nation. The country had a constitution for the first time. The Nation was divided into districts, each one getting a representative who would be directly elected by his (or her) constituents.

Zuko still had most of the sovereignty, but now, there were protections in place to make sure that the Fire Nation never succumbed to tyranny again. Fire Lords could no longer declare war unilaterally. They needed approval from Parliament. People had individual rights and could enforce them in court.

Citizenship was no longer restricted based on bloodline. The Fire Nation was in many was the most progressive nation in the world.

Mai and Izumi were playing in the garden. The future Fire Lord was a happy little girl. As far as she knew, everything was sweets and play dates. Mai hoped it stayed this way for a long time.

Izumi had a doll that looked just like her. She named it Izumi and it had been released to commemorate her third birthday.

Mai never played with dolls as a girl. She thought they were stupid, and she still thought that they were stupid, but the smile they put on her daughter’s face was heartwarming, and she was glad that her daughter had stupid fun.

“When’s grandma coming?” Izumi asked. Ursa (and Ikem) came to visit her son and his family often, especially now that Kiyi was an adult and no longer needed  supervision.

“Next week Darling.”

“Do you think she’ll like my doll?”

“I bet she’ll love it.”


	2. All Toys Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zuko's attempt to democratize the Fire Nation has major hurdles to overcome. Karrupa struggles to be a firebender his mother can be proud of.

**115AG**

A little girl with brown eyes and dark skin came crying to her mother. “That woman was mean. She called me a mudblood!”

The woman held her daughter close. “Some people are cruel. Don’t let their words hurt you. Ignore them Ami.”

Xenophobia had been on the rise since a hateful man, Former War Minister Qin, was elected into the Parliament. He was calling for them to throw out the Constitution and to get rid of those who were sullying the race.

“This is a disgrace to the line of Sozin!” He also wanted Azula to take Zuko’s place on the throne.

The Defenders of Sozin (DOS) started as a small party, just Qin and Admiral Chan, making flyers out of a basement.

Given the country’s liberal attitude with freedom of speech, there was nothing Zuko could do about their troublesome ideas.

Unfortunately, the party grew when the Fire Nation faced a recession in 113AG, and one year later, they had to deal with Qin in Parliament.

The other representatives had refused to seat him arguing that his rhetoric to get rid of the Constitution was unconstitutional. The courts however ruled against Parliament, forcing them to accept Qin’s post. “He was elected by the people. The people have a right to put the man (or woman) of its choosing in Parliament. Only if he breaks the rules can he be expelled!”

Hate crimes had gone up 100% since he was elected, but there was no proof he was behind them. All Zuko could do was hire more police and call for the prosecutors to take hate crimes more seriously. His hands were tied.

* * *

 

Aang, on the other hand, was not bound by the Constitution. He and Katara came to investigate.

“The city looks okay,” the Avatar said upon arrival. The streets were clean. The people looked orderly.

His opinion quickly changed when he heard a yelling. He and Katara ran to see an old man from the Earth Kingdom being beaten by Fire Nation teenagers.

Aang commanded them to stop and Katara froze shackles to the boys before tending to the old man.

“Did you come here to protect your pathetic friend?” one of the boys sneered.

“I bet you and your water whore are making mudbloods left and right.”

Aang ignored the vitriol at first, but when one of the punks said he hoped Katara had a miscarriage (she actually was three months pregnant not that this idiot knew) Aang went into the Avatar State and was ready to crush him.

“Calm down!” Katara demanded. She had dealt with such verbal abuse before and although she hated what the boys were saying, she really hated their parents for teaching them such hateful things.

The police came and took the boys to lockup.

“How long has it been like this?” Aang asked the officer. He looked to be about 40 years old.

“The violence has been growing since January.” It was now May.

“Why isn’t more being done?” Katara questioned.

“Our hands are tied!” the man was frustrated. “We can’t touch the scoundrels who put out this racist garbage. We can only go after their followers and as soon as we jail one, two more replace him! This party never should have been allowed to form at all!”

* * *

 

Later that day, Aang asked Zuko what the guard meant by that.

The Fire Lord sighed.

“When we were forming the Constitution, there was a debate as to whether we should prohibit certain types of political parties, basically parties who either try to subvert the Constitution or try to implement some type of dictatorship.”

“And you didn’t prohibit them?” Aang questioned.

“We couldn’t agree on what types of parties should be banned or who should decide if they were banned. Everyone agreed that bad people could become popular and problematic (Sozin was the most popular Fire Lord yet), but no one could agree on what to do about it, so nothing was done, and now, our Court has been quite eager to uphold the Constitution, which is usually good, but it makes it hard to target these hate groups that hide behind political speech.”

There was a knock on our door.

“Come in!”

It was Izumi. Aang found it eerie how much she looked like Azula. She had bangs and kept her hair in a topknot like her father. She was wearing her training robes.

“Are we still practicing today?” she asked her father.

Zuko was about to cancel when Aang told him to go ahead.

“I want to talk to some more people and get their opinions, so we can meet later.”

Izumi bowed to Aang and Katara; she was very polite. Then the two were off.

“Who are we going to talk to?” Katara asked.

“Let’s start with the staff. They’re always chatting when the royal family isn’t in the room.”

From the chef to the personal attendants, everyone had something different to say about the problems in the Fire Nation.

It was the Head Librarian that said it best. “Zuko conferred rights to people who weren’t used to having them. The Fire Nation people are an obedient people. They expect a dictator to tell them what to do and think, and Qin is easily getting followers because he does that; he fits the mold of what they think a leader is.

Zuko is well meaning, but he’s too passive for people who aren’t used to being active. Qin looks like a strong leader because he has a loud voice and can puff out his chest. Zuko has to prove he’s a better leader for the country.”

* * *

“Again!” his mother called to him. Karrupa was trying to learn a new combo move. He got the first two parts right, but it was always the third that caused him to falter.

He tried it again, only to stamp his foot in frustration.

His mother frowned. “We’ll take a break.”

“But I’ll never get it by resting.”

“You won’t get it with getting angry either. Firebending is hard; for many reasons, it is the hardest element to master. If you don’t keep control of your emotions, then it will show in your bending.

Come inside. We’ll have some steam buns, and you can work on it later.

He nodded and they went inside. Sometimes, he thought his brother Roku had it lucky. They had no waterbending master in the family, so he only learned in school. He was born the best waterbender in the family. Mother was the best of the best, and it was hard for Karrupa not to compare himself to her all the time. She was a master at age 12. He was 10 and nowhere close.

Rei liked to watch her older brother firebend. She was too young for lessons, but when she was old enough she was going to firebend, just like him!

Minako liked to nap. Rei’s twin sister was the lazy child in the family. She was just like their papa, sleeping in on weekends instead of doing anything productive.

Their mother got the steamer going and put some in the top.

“Who wants a snack?”

She got three different voices yelling, “ME!”

She got a second steamer going and put in more steam buns. She was sure that her husband and other daughter would come just in time for the food.

About ten minutes later, the father came downstairs with a sleepy three year old on his shoulders.

“I smell food!”

“Of course you do you lazybones!”

He had a big grin on his face. His wife was just as pretty today as she had been the day he met her. They had four beautiful kids, each of them looking like a combination of the two parents. Minako and Roku took after the father a bit more in terms of personality. Karrupa and Rei were more like mother. Maybe it was elemental. Maybe it wasn’t.

The family all gathered around the table and got steam buns with cow pig inside. They had dipping sauces to go with the food, and the children got juice while the parents drank coffee.

“How did your lesson go?” Karrupa’s father asked him.

“I still can’t get that move.”

“But once you do get it, it will feel like you could always do it.”

“Mom was better than me when she was ten,” Karrupa fussed.

His mother glared at him. “I was raised by a nutcase who made me train for hours a day, seven days a week. Don’t compare yourself to me. There are plenty of things you know that I didn’t when I was your age.”

“Is grandpa still in jail?” Rei asked. She asked this every now and then.

“Yes, he is,” their father told her. He would always be in jail, and they told Rei this, but she still didn’t get the concept of forever. She was only three.

“What about our other grandpa?” Rei asked him.

“He is in the North Pole.”

“Will he visit us?”

“No.” he told her.

“Can we visit him?”

“He doesn’t want us to visit him,” Azula said. “He’s not a nice man.”

That’s what she said about her father too. They also didn’t see either of their grandmothers. How was everyone in this family so mean?

“When will we see Aunt Kira?” Roku asked, trying to distract his little sister from their estranged family.

“She’s visiting next month,” their father told them. “She’s bringing Makoto.”

“Yay!” Minako said. Makoto was her favorite. She would take her to the mall.

His sister used to live in Republic City, but then her husband got a promotion in Ba Sing Se, so they moved there last year.

The snacks and drinks were long gone. Roku got the dishes. It was easy enough with his waterbending.

Karrupa went outside to train by himself. Like his mother, he was determined to be perfect.

Azula watched from the window. “Do you think he gets nervous when he sees me?” He looked like a better firebender from the window than he had up close.

“I think he’s determined to impress you. He always has been.”

“He doesn’t need to firebend to impress me,” Azula said. “He just needs to find his own way, that will impress me enough.”

“You’ve told him that,” her husband reminded her. “He just needs to let it sink in.”

Azula turned to her other son, who was putting the dishes way. “What have you been doing all day?”

“I was practicing with my pipa.”

“I’d like to hear it,” she said.

He made a face.

“If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t have it just right yet.”

“Isn’t music improvisational? Just make something up. I won’t know the difference.”

He nodded and went to get it.

“I got it!” Azula heard from outside. She looked out, and Karrupa did his move perfectly.

“Like I said,” Azula told him, “you will be fine once you let go of the anger.” She gave him a hug. “Come inside, your brother is going to play something on the pipa.”

“But he’s not that good,” Karrupa complained.

“Well maybe he’ll be famous some day. You can say you knew him when.”

Karrupa rolled his eyes, but he followed his mother in the house. They sat on the couch.

Minako climbed in her mother’s lap. Rei sat on her brother, and their father was next to his wife.

Roku wasn’t expecting the whole family, but he should have. They always congregated together, like baby koala sheep that need to stay warm. Roku started playing a melody he heard when he went downtown last week.

He did sound better when he was just playing by ear than when he tried to read his sheet music. When he was reading the music, he was too stiff.

“I have to say, that sounds not that terrible,” Karrupa said to him.

Roku was silent, but then he froze his brother’s feet together.

“HEY!”

“Maybe you should ditch the sheet music,” Azula told him. “You sound better without it.”

“I can do that?” His mother had always been one for formality and grace. It seemed uncouth to just make up his music all the time.

“Why not?” He can do whatever he wants to do.

Minako tried to take his pipa, but it was too big for her.

“Maybe I’ll get you a flute,” Azula said to her. It would be good for her to take interest in something other than sleeping and shopping.


	3. Finding a Lost Princess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zuko wants Azula found because he thinks she tried to kill him.

**January 116AG**

Mai was cold. It was not cold outside, but she sure her bitterness made her feel cold. She and Izumi were in a safe room, protected by Zuko’s best guard. There had just been an attempt on the royal family. Mai’s stiletto was buried into the neck of an assassin.

Her daughter had been playing with her. Izumi just saw her mother kill someone. Mai wanted to hang whoever planned this, the bastard who broke Izumi’s perfect image of her parents.

The girl’s doll fell to the floor. She was too shaken to bother to pick it up. “Who would hurt us?”

“Bad people,” Mai said as she hugged her daughter. “Bad people who your father is going to beat.”

The other failed assassin was spewing garbage about how he was going to purify the race and save the Fire Nation. “The Rightful Fire Lord will return!”

* * *

 

Zuko was ready to scream. He should have known Azula was behind this. She must have heard about the drama and decided now was the time to cash in. He would not let her win. She would not get his wife or his daughter. He would catch her.

The furious Fire Lord wrote to his friends and they all appeared, Aang came with Katara and Bumi. He thought they should stay home, since she had just given birth in December, but she said she was fine and that “the palace is always safest right after an assassination attempt.”

Aang cringed at that tidbit.

Sokka came with Suki.

Ty Lee came with Teo. It was strongly fitting that the boy who couldn’t walk captured the heart of the girl obsessed with motion.

Toph was the last to appear. She had been on a retreat in the middle of Makapu Village. It took a while for her to get the correspondence.

“So what’s going on Sparky?”

“There was an attempt on the Royal Family two weeks ago. One assailant was killed in action and the other committed suicide in jail.”

“Who hired them?” Aang questioned.

“We have not been able to prove it, but I believe it was either Qin, former Admiral Chan, or perhaps both of them together. The assassins were definitely apart of DOS.”

“What needs to be done?” Sokka questioned.

“I need you to track down Azula and find out her part in all of this.”

“You think Azula’s involved?” Ty Lee questioned. “No one’s heard from her in well over a decade.”

“The assassin all but told me that she was involved before he killed himself.”

“What did he say exactly?” Sokka questioned.

“That the rightful Fire Lord would return to the throne.”

“So they want Azula back. Is there any proof that she’s actually with them?” Sokka questioned.

“Do you actually think she’s innocent?” Katara snapped.

“In general no, but what proof is there that she’s involved with this? It’s possible that they were just going to kill Zuko and his family and wait for her to comeback. We don’t know if she knows about them at all.”

“And this matters why?” Mai questioned.

“It matters because it determines where she is and what we should do when we find her. If she’s waiting for Zuko to die, she’s likely well hidden in some bunker or something, but if she’s uninvolved, she might just be living in some town out and about. How will we search for someone we haven’t seen in almost 15 years if we can’t at least figure out what kind of life she’s actually living?”

“We should prepare for both cases,” Toph said. “Half of us should search as if she’s lying in wait and the other half should look for her in public. We won’t know what she’s doing until we find her, and we won’t find her if we don’t look in the right places.”

They decided that Sokka, Suki and Toph would do public search and Aang, Ty Lee, and Teo would do the underground search.

Katara was to stay in the palace with baby Bumi, and she could help Zuko and Mai administratively.

The investigation had already begun, search warrants executed, witness statements taken. There was a lot of “evidence,” but there was not enough proof to take down anyone else, yet.

“Let’s get to work,” Katara said. She wanted this over and done with. She wanted to be able to go home. Somehow, the war never stopped when it ended. Katara kept thinking the end was in sight. What end was that?


	4. She's with him?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sokka is surprised to see Azula's choice for a husband.

Ty Lee could make Teo look Fire Nation with the right clothing, but Aang was too recognizable.

“There are two ways that we can draw out DOS members,” Ty Lee said. “One is to annoy them and the other is to join them.”

Aang went out into the city square and waited to see who insulted him. He started making notes of where he got called out to see if there was any shop or place where the racist people congregated. As the day turned to night, he noticed one bar in particular and thought this was the place to go.

Ty Lee and Teo decided to go there.

“If anyone asks, you got stabbed in the back during the war by Earth Kingdom scum,” Ty Lee told her husband. She had to find a way to make his disability work for them.

“I got it Ty.”

“My name is Lily and you’re Kuzon.”

“Got it Lily!”

Right away, a big looking thug tried to hit on her. “What are you doing with no legs here? Why not get a real man?”

Ty Lee slapped him. “He is a war veteran and should be treated with respect. It’s not his fault that cowardly Earth Kingdom swine stabbed him in the back.”

The man’s face changed. “I apologize. Thank you for your service.”

Right away, Ty Lee caught the attention of the group. Hopefully, this would be their way in.

* * *

 

Sokka, Suki, and Toph, however, took a different approach. They contacted each national government and asked for its census data on any female firebenders aged 27-33. She was only thirty, but she might have added or shaved off a couple of years to evade detection.

They would then cross-check this information with what they knew about her, height, weight, eye color and then check on the possible matches.

“Well, there are no female firebenders in the tribes, but that’s no surprise,” Sokka said. They seldom got outsiders at all, especially not Fire Nation.

“We can also exclude the Temples and Kyoshi Island,” Suki added. “I also think we should put the Fire Nation possibilities at the bottom of the list. If she were living openly in the Fire Nation, I think someone would have said something to Zuko.”

Left were Ba Sing Se, Omashu, and Republic City.

“Wouldn’t you have noticed if she were in Republic City?” Suki asked Toph, she was the Captain of the Police Force there.

“Possibly not. It’s a pretty big city, and who knows if she’s the same size now that she was 15 years ago. She could have gotten fat or something.”

“Like if she had kids,” Sokka mentioned.

Suki glared.

“Not that you would get fat of course, but it could have happened.”

They sent notices to the police forces in Ba Sing Se and Omashu, but none of them had any knowledge of the Princess.

They decided to focus on Republic City instead.

“Are there no female firebenders here,” Suki questioned after looking through the data.

“They do census by household,” Toph told her. “So if she has a husband, then the census information would be filed under his name, not hers.”

“So we need to check all of the firebending households, not just the ones that list a female firebender as the head.”

“Yeah.”

“Damn!”

Eventually, they came up with three families that were promising.

“We got one lesbian couple,” Sokka started, “one couple with four kids and one … I think it’s a boarding house or something because it lists three males and two females.”

“Or they’re polyamorous,” Toph told him.

“What’s that?”

Suki sighed. “It means that they could all be in a relationship together.”

“A sexual one?”

“Yes.”

“Between the dudes?”

“Who knows?”

“EW!”

They all agreed that the lesbian couple seemed most promising.

Sokka waited down the street to see who came out and he saw a short woman with dark hair. He started to follow her just to get kicked in the balls. “Don’t stalk me you creep!”

“I’m not a creep!”

She wasn’t Azula.

“You wouldn’t by any chance be married to Azula, would you?”

“What? No!”

The woman angrily left.

“OW!” Sokka whined.

* * *

 

“Maybe she’s a sex freak?” Toph offered.

They tried that house next.

It was just two sisters, their boyfriends, and one boyfriend’s lazy brother who had no job.

“That was boring,” Toph said when she left that house.

“Do you really think Azula’s married?” Sokka questioned, “with children?”

“Maybe,” Suki said. “Or she just doesn’t live here.”

* * *

 

Sokak tried the last house and when he got there, he saw a man playing in the back with his two children.

He was a seasonal worker, so he got the winters off, but come March, he would be working until November as a fisherman.

He had twin girls, each with black hair but one had blue eyes and the other had gold eyes.

Minako hugged her dad’s leg.

Rei looked over his shoulder. “Who’s that man?”

Her father turned around to see a man he hadn’t seen in well over a decade.

“HAHN?” Sokka questioned. What is he doing here?

“Go inside,” he told the girls. “I’ll see what he wants.”

The girls went into the house and waited for their father.

Hahn came to the fence where he saw Sokka peering over. “What are you doing here?”

“Is Azula here?”

“No.” She’s at work.

“Does she live here?” Sokka questioned.

“Who wants to know?”

“I just need to find out where she is.”

“She’s at her job.”

“Which is where?”

“You’re the detective. You figure it out.”

Hahn went inside. He had no interest in dealing with annoying peasants.

“Who was that man?” Rei asked.

“We fought together during the war.” That was not a lie.

“Is he a friend?”

“No. He was a rival, and now he’s gone.”

Rei made sure to remember his face. They seldom saw anyone from Mom or Dad’s past. Their lives were largely a mystery.


	5. Azula is where?

“Have we heard anything yet?” Zuko was annoyed. How did their searches always go nowhere?

Aang and Katara went back to the temple. Aang had other work to do, and they did what they could until it was time to fight someone. It’s not like either of them could infiltrate the enemy.

“According to Ty Lee,” Mai said to him, “lots of people talk about how it will be better when Azula returns, but no one has actually admitted to seeing her.” They talk a lot, but it seems to be mostly just angry venting. She wonders how many of these people would be here if they weren’t in a recession again.

Perhaps they think those colored people stole their jobs when the reality is there are fewer jobs for everyone. People blame reparations that have been long paid. People just want to blame someone, so they chose the Fire Lord.

“Any word from the others.”

“They had a list of possible Azula’s that they were checking. I haven’t heard of anything since.”

Zuko was exhausted.

“Your mother is coming to visit soon.”

“Maybe she will have some ideas.” Zuko drank a coffee, a spiked one.

* * *

“I can’t believe she married Hahn!” Sokka told Toph and Suki.

“Isn’t he Water Tribe?” Toph questioned.

“Yeah, so?”

“So why would she participate in a movement to ethnically cleanse the Fire Nation? She’d be arguing for the extinction of her own children.”

Sokka’s eyes fell. “You’re right. She wouldn’t.”

They wrote to Zuko, explaining why it was very unlikely that Azula was a member of this organization or that she would join it anytime soon.

Zuko got the letter three days later. “She married Hahn?”

Most people would consider it good to learn that your sister is not the one trying to kill you. Zuko was only more frustrated. “Now I don’t know who is behind all of this.” He had been sure it was Azula from the start. Now, he had no idea.

Mai was surprised to learn that Azula settled down. She figured Azula died in the Forgetful Valley over a decade ago, and the search would result in nothing. “Are her children firebenders?”

“I don’t know,” Zuko said. “They just said she had four kids.” The census only collected bending data on the adults.

“That’s a lot,” Mai commented. She had wanted to give Izumi a sibling, but she couldn’t. There would be no spare heir for Zuko.

“I’m sure at least one’s firebender,” Zuko told her. “Probably two.” Azula was the epitome of firebending. How could she not produce firebenders?

The criminal investigation fizzled out. Zuko successfully managed to bring a conspiracy case against some of those who had participated in the plot, but he never got to the top, and everyone knew it. You could try to kill the Fire Lord and his family without getting caught if you knew where to hide. The realization was troubling.

All Zuko could do was beef up his intelligence. Undercover agents were trained to infiltrate DOS. He would have to wait for them to try again.

* * *

 “Sokka was asking about you,” Hahn said to his wife as she came through the door.

She grunted. “I’m sure Zuzu put him up to it.”

“He never said why. I didn’t exactly invite him in for tea.”

Azula started to wash her hands. She would have to make dinner soon. “Something stupid happened in the Fire Nation, and Zuzu blamed me. I doubt the particulars matter.” No matter how many years went by, Azula was still somehow responsible for every bad thing that happened to her stupid “brother.”

Hahn’s arms went around his wife’s waist. He kissed her neck. “I won’t let them take you from me.” They came too far to lose everything now. They were too close to perfection.

“I’m not worried about that,” she said, and she wasn’t. When she got citizenship into United Republic, it was effectively a pardon for her past crimes. “But I am worried about him making waves at my job.” If people knew she was the Azula, they didn’t act like it. If Zuko’s friends kept sniffing around, they might cause waves that lead to her ouster.

“Lao knows who you are,” he said to her.

“I know, but I don’t think everyone we work with realizes.”

“How? You go by the same name.”

“When a princess is born, pregnant women often give their daughters the same name. There are probably six Azulas about my age, and I’m sure some of them have gold eyes. They may think I’m just named after the princess.”

The Water Tribes did no such thing. “There had only been one Yue.”

Azula shrugged. “There weren’t as many people in your tribe. It would be awkward to have two Yues when everyone knows everyone else.”

It wasn’t Hahn’s tribe anymore. It ceased to be his the moment his ship crashed on Azula’s shore.

He thought he’d be Chief. She thought she’d be Fire Lord. Everything only came into place when they left their past ambitions behind. Their fathers used them to achieve their own ends. Their mothers may have been horrified, but they never did anything to stop it.

“My sister wants us to visit her this summer.”

Hahn had a sister and not a brother. That was really his only saving grace. His sister could have never been Chief. He had an ally in her instead of a rival. She was there for him when everything fell apart. Azula, on the other hand, had no family to count on until she married Hahn.

“I think that would be nice.” It was always interesting to visit the city she had once conquered. Usually, she made it through unscathed, but every now and then, some drunken jerk wanted to challenge her. They always lost.

“I thought you hated Ba Sing Se,” Hahn said to her.

“I hate anything that reminds me of my past life,” Azula said to him, “but that’s too many things for me to avoid them all.”

Minako interrupted their kiss. “Dinner!”

Azula broke away from her husband. “You heard the girl. Now stop distracting me, so I can cook.”

He pecked her cheek and took Minako upstairs with him.

Azula promised herself she wouldn’t have favorites, but Minako was her favorite. She was a daddy’s girl, just like Azula had once been, but instead of having a father to teach her firebending drills and prepare her for war, Minako had a father who liked taking naps alongside her and carrying her on his shoulders. Minako represented what Azula could have been without the perversion of the Fire Nation Royal Family.

As Azula made the noodles that she would be frying for dinner, her thoughts drifted to her other children.

Karrupa was a mama’s boy. In that regard, and when it came to his temper, he reminded Azula of her brother, but unlike Zuko, Karrupa wasn’t clingy. He had his own friends, and he didn’t use Azula as a shield, not that she would ever put up with such behavior. He was strong, and that was what made Azula proud of him.

Azula slammed the noodles on the table. Now they were ready to rest. She started to prepare the vegetables, peeling tomato carrots, slicing onions and crushing ginger garlic.

Roku was a free spirit like his Aunt Kira. He never felt a need to follow either of his parents. Perhaps it was because he was the first waterbender born to the family. He would never throw lightening like his mother or wield a spear like his father once had. He didn’t even think his waterbending defined him. Sure, it was useful, but to him it was just a tool. For whatever reason, music had been what captured his attention.

Azula blanched the vegetables in boiling water just to shock them in ice water. They would keep their vibrant color this way. They looked perfect.

Rei was inquisitive, like her mother. She always had questions about who everyone was and when would they see which relative. Azula paid careful attention every time there had been a guest in the palace. It had always seemed important who allied with whom. For now she studies people, but soon, she will be able to read them. Azula finds this both exciting and horrifying. She doesn’t know what will happen when Rei learns to read her.

Azula pulled the meat she had marinated out of the fridge. She threw away the extra sauce and then seared the cow pig. She added the vegetables and fried the noodles in a wok before adding them to the meat.

“DINNER!” she called out.

Doors opened. Footsteps got louder as her family came into the kitchen. Her children washed their hands in the kitchen sink before sitting at the table. Azula tried to feed them a vegetable, a meat and a starch with each meal. If there was more to nutrition than that, she didn’t know it.

“This smells good,” Hahn told her. He didn’t know what a vegetable was until he woke up in her house and she presented him with wonton soup. He also hadn’t known what a wonton was. The food options had been limited in the North Pole.

Minako just shoved food in her face. Her messy mouth was all of the approval Azula needed.

At the end of the day, Azula loved all of her children, and even if she had a favorite, she tried to make sure that no one knew it. She wanted each child to feel like both parents were available. She never wanted any of them to feel like she had growing up.

March 116AG

Hahn had to go back to work. Now that the water was warmer, there were more fish to catch, which meant there were more jobs. Azula’s salary was what the family lived on. Hahn’s salary was for their retirement.

Most men would resent being the lower wage earner, and clearly the less intelligent one in the marriage, but Hahn hated having a lot of responsibility on his shoulder. His father wanted him to be chief and for what. He could hardly remember anyone’s name? How was he going to run a tribe?

Hahn’s job was simple. Get the fish. Unlike his spear hunting days, he had a net. People came and went, so he didn’t really have to learn anyone’s name. Sometimes, simple was the way to go.

“Can I go to work with you?” Minako asked her dad.

He laughed before kissing her forehead. “It’s dangerous. I’m not allowed to bring children to work.”

“But I’ll sit still!”

“You’re going to work with Mommy.”

“But I’m just going to daycare.”

“My job doesn’t even have a daycare.”

Hahn left for work. He was the first one out the door.

The boys were next. They were old enough to get themselves to school and back home. Azula couldn’t believe they were almost 11. Where did the years go?

“Did you pack your lunch?” she asked Roku. Sometimes he forgot to bring it.

“Yes.” He knocked on his backpack, revealing the bento box inside. If he didn’t remember his lunch, he had to get a school lunch, and Azula got the bill. She did not like overpaying for greasy crap.

Karrupa never forgot his lunch. Sometimes, he did forget his homework, but he always had his sandwich and his treats.

“Be good,” Azula told them.

“We will!” Karrupa said.

Azula didn’t really believe that, but she hadn’t gotten any complaints this year, so she assumed they weren’t too terrible. Surely, they were better than she had been at the Royal Academy. One girl insulted Azula’s hairstyle, and Azula had set the girl’s hair on fire. The school made the other girl apologize to her. No wonder I was such a brat!

Rei was excited to go to work with mommy. “Will I meet your friends?”

Azula rubbed Rei’s head. “You will spend your day in daycare, but if you and Minako are good, you can have lunch with me in my office. Maybe you’ll meet the people I work with.”

Rei grinned. “Mina-chan we have to be good today!”

Minako just yawned.

Azula got them on the trolley and they went to work. Luckily, children under the age of five rode free, so Azula didn’t have to pay extra. Hopefully, they’d stay small and she could have them ride free for a bit longer than their fifth birthdays.

Bei Fong Industries was in a glass tower. They had an employee’s entrance with a secure access card and a guarded entrance for visitors. Azula swiped her card, allowing her and her girls inside and then she took them to daycare, which was on the ground floor, in the back.

“This is their first day,” Azula told Meng, the daycare supervisor. “If they’re a handful, I’m on the fourth floor. Be good for Meng,” Azula told her girls.

“Yes Mama!” Rei said happily.

Minako just yawned.

Azula left them to go to work. She had 20 minutes before she had to clock in, enough time to get more coffee and relax. Who ever thought children would be more tiring than fighting a war?

* * *

Zuko was still fighting a war. Zuko would always be fighting a war. First it was within himself, then it was he against his “family,” and now it was he against his own Parliament. There was more going on than just DOS conflict. Now, there were disputes over trade agreements and contracts. Each representative seemed vested in his friends and family and not his constituents.

With everyone struggling to get one piece of the pie, it was becoming increasingly difficult to get anything done in the legislative chambers. Bills couldn’t pass because they would need to “bribe” too many people to get the bill through, making the agreements unviable.

Zuko had been skirting them with royal decrees as much as he could, but his opponents only accused him of subverting the constitution. Also, his reach was more limited when he used a royal decree instead of a bill confirmed by Parliament. The rules he had put in placed to protect the future from tyranny seemed to be dismantling the present.

With Zuko preoccupied with his work, raising Izumi largely fell to Mai. This wasn’t a new development, but as Izumi got older, she missed her father’s presence more.

“How come he’s always busy?” she asked her mother, sad that he canceled yet another lesson.

“He’s not having a good time right now.”

“Should we bring him steam buns?” They always made Izumi feel better.

“Maybe later, Honey.”

After dinner, Mai had a question for her husband. “Do you think we’re turning into my parents?”

He looked alarmed. “What’s giving you that idea?”

“You’re always working. I can’t wait until Izumi goes to school because as much as I love her, raising her is tiring, and sometimes, I wonder if I’m enough.” Mai assumed her mother didn’t really want her. What if she had, but it was all just too much?

Zuko kissed her. “We are not our parents. We love Izumi, and she knows that.”

“She misses you.”

“I know.” Zuko also knew he needed to make it up to her. “I’ll spend extra time with her during the summer recess.” Luckily Parliament would be far away from him.

Zuko was sure that he and Mai were doing a much better job than she gave herself credit for. They were far from perfect, but they cared about each other, and their little girl.

It will all be fine in the end.


	6. Vacation in Ba Sing Se

Summer 116AG

Hahn got one week off work. They used it to go to Ba Sing Se.

“Why do we have a connecting flight?” Roku asked as they headed for the Northern Air Temple.

“Because these were free tickets I got from work,” Azula told him. “The layover is only an hour. It’s not like we’ll have to sit around all day.”

It also meant they could use a bathroom not on the sky ship; Azula didn’t trust them and they could get some cheaper snacks than the overpriced crud they sold aboard.

As they landed, Hahn realized this was the closest that his family had ever been to his homeland.

He looked to the west; he couldn’t see the tribe, but it was off in the distance.

Roku looked around. He saw a boy playing the flute. It made him wish he had his pipa.

Karrupa used his firebending to heat up the noodles he bought from the cart. They had been lukewarm when he got them.

The blue flames unnerved the cart owner, but he paid her no mind.

Minako saw noodles, and she wanted some too. He bought her a small and heated hers as well.

Rei stayed close to their mom. She could feel the eyes on her and the people unnerved her.

“Why do they stare?”

“They are a small community. They can tell right away when they see outsiders.”

“Don’t they know staring is rude.”

Some of the people turned away when they heard the small child chastising them.

“They know now,” Azula told them. She was about to get her family on the next sky ship when she heard a voice calling her name.

She looked, and it was Ty Lee running at her.

SHIT!

“I didn’t know you were here,” the girl said to her, now out of breath. She saw Azula when she had been doing a flip in the air.

“It was a layover. We’ve only been here thirty minutes.”

Azula’s children turned back to watch the puzzling woman. They all shared some of their mother’s features and some of Hahn’s.

“You really do have four kids.” Mai said she did, but it seemed inconceivable.

“Is that what the rumor mill is churning?”

Ty Lee realized she said that aloud. “I heard it from someone.”

Teo started calling his wife’s name.

“You should probably go to him, whoever he is.”

Azula headed on board.

Ty Lee walked away. She wasn’t sure what she had to gain by seeing her after so long, but it was a good thing that Azula had changed, wasn’t it?

“Who was that?” Rei asked as her mother handed their tickets to the agent in the front.

“We went to school together.”

“Does she live here?”

“I have no idea.”

Rei saw the girl with a man in a wheelchair. “Why can’t he walk?”

Azula didn’t know. “He might have been injured during the war or something. When you see someone hurt like that, don’t ask him what happened. It usually makes them feel bad.”

Rei didn’t ask any more questions until they got to Ba Sing Se.

Hahn brought his family to an inn. His sister said they were welcome to squeeze in, but fitting six extra people into their house sounded disastrous.

“It’s worth paying for a double room,” Azula said. She and her husband had one room, Karrupa and Roku had the other, and the two girls were on the pull out couch in between.

* * *

Zuko brought his family to the summer festival in Ba Sing Se. They had street performers, music, and all kinds of delicious food. At night, they would put on fireworks.

Their first stop (after the inn) was the Jasmine Dragon, as always. Iroh still owned it but he did less of the physical work as he aged.

“How is my favorite nephew?”

“I’m pretty sure I’m you’re only nephew,” Zuko teased.

“Actually, you’re not,” Mai told him.

Zuko rolled his eyes.

“What?” Iroh questioned. Did Ozai have bastard children that appeared recently?

“Technically, you have two great-nephews.” Not that they’ll ever see them.

“Oh,” the implication was clear.

“How’s my favorite niece?” Iroh hugged Izumi.

“Dad says we’re going to see fireworks!” Izumi had a big grin on her face.

“Now that sounds like fun.”

After some tea, cookies, and conversation, Zuko took his family to the festival.

The streets were packed. Since he was a world leader, Zuko had a pedestal from which he could watch, but he wanted to have more fun, so they went exploring on the “commoner” level.

Izumi saw various dolls for sale. Most of them she already had, but one of them was new. It was an Azula doll, made by Bei Fong Industries. She was wearing her signature armor.

“Can I get this one?” Izumi asked her mother.

Mai was about to automatically say yes when she saw it was a doll of her former best friend.

“Since when do they sell this doll in Ba Sing Se?” she asked the storeowner.

“Since it started making money. People want to be counter-culture or retro. The villain dolls sell like hotcakes.” She was already running low on Ozai dolls. Azulon and Sozin were less popular.

Izumi had a begging look. Against her better judgment, Mai bought the doll. How would she explain this to Zuko?

* * *

 

Rei saw the same doll stand an hour later. “Mama, it’s you!”

Azula looked to see a replica of her younger self. She had a flashback to the catacombs of Ba Sing Se.

She was fighting Iroh and the others. Zuko was on the fence as to whether or not he would join her. He chose her, for once, only to betray her later.

She started hyperventilating.

The storeowner took her photo. “When people see that you were here, my dolls will sell even faster!”

Karrupa had never seen his mother look afraid before. He got Rei to put the doll back, and they left quickly.

The worst thing was, Azula knew they made the doll. Of course she knew; the company she worked for made the doll. She just never thought she’d see it by surprise. Not being prepared for it unnerved her.

Hahn and Minako had been getting snacks. When he saw his wife’s ghostly complexion, he knew something had happened. He handed the food to Karrupa and took his wife. “Watch your sisters until we come back.”

Hahn went to get his wife from the crowd. Once they were alone, he pulled her into his arms. He knew how much she hated public affection.

“The war is over,” he reminded her. “You’ll never have to fight like that again.”

“The war is never over. Every day is a fight,” she muttered against his skin.

He hated what her “family” had done to her. The scars would never fully heal.

Roku came back from checking out the bands unaware anything had been wrong. “Where are Mom and Dad?”

“She freaked out,” Karrupa told him quietly, “after she saw that doll they made of her.”

“Was it a voodoo doll? That would freak me out too.”

Karrupa shook his head. “I think that would have been less terrible.”

Rei knew something happened, but she was still too young to understand what it was. She did know not to point out things that resembled her mother anymore.

When Azula came back, the family decided to go visit Aunt Kira and Uncle Tyrin. “We can come back later for the fireworks,” Hahn said.

* * *

Zuko was not amused when he saw Izumi’s doll. “Where did you get that?”

“Mama bought it for me.”

“Why don’t you go play in your room?”

Izumi ran off.

Zuko went to find his wife. “What the hell!”

“You saw the doll.”

“Yes, I saw the doll. What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that I should say no, but if I did, then Izumi would want to know why. What was I supposed to tell her? We never talk about your sister.”

Zuko frowned. Mai had a point. “I don’t want her thinking that war is a thing to celebrate.”

“Neither do I. Hopefully, she just thinks it’s a doll like all her other dolls.”

Iroh saw the doll, and he was unsettled too. “Where did you get that?”

“Mama gave it to me. Isn’t she pretty?”

Azula had been beautiful. It wasn’t surprising that the doll was too. “Yes, the doll is pretty. Why don’t you go show the waitress?”

Iroh asked for a word with Zuko. “Is that a good idea?”

“They’re selling like hotcakes.” Zuko was alarmed to see them all over the city. “Mai wasn’t sure how to say no without complicating matters further, so she didn’t say no at all.”

If that wasn’t enough of a problem, Izumi saw Azula in the town square later that day.

“She looks like my doll.”

* * *

 

By the time Mai realized the significance of the statement, Izumi ran up to the mother of four.

“Is this you?”

Azula turned around to see a pint-sized version of herself holding that damn doll. She still found the doll disturbing, but now she expected to see it in the city.

“Yes it is.”

“How come you don’t wear your hair up anymore?”

Mai finally caught up to Izumi. “What did I tell you about talking to strangers?” She was hoping to get them out of here as quickly as possible

“But she’s not a stranger. See, I have her doll.”

“Your father is taking you to get fire flakes.”

“Yay!” Izumi ran off to find him.

Damn Hahn for taking their daughters to the bathroom. Azula could really use an egress right now.

It had been fifteen years since the last time they had seen each other. Mai finally found a hairstyle more appropriate for her age. Azula’s hair was down her back. She always cut it off at the shoulders. She refused to see Ursa when she looked in the mirror.

“You don’t wear your hair in a topknot anymore,” Mai finally said.

Apparently, only Crown Princesses do that. “You no longer have odangos on the top of your head.”

“My hair did not look like dumplings!”

“No, they looked more like meatballs.”

“What are you doing in Ba Sing Se?”

“It’s a free world, even for me.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I’m visiting family.”

“Iroh hasn’t seen you.” Who else could she mean?

Azula scoffed. “He’s not apart of my family. He never really was.”

Rei ran up to her mother. “We’re getting dim sum. Karrupa and Roku are holding our spot in line.”

“I must be going.” Azula took her daughter with her.

“Who was that woman?”

“We went to school together.”

“With that other girl.”

“Yeah, with that other girl.”

Azula almost told her daughter that they had once been best friends, but she didn’t.

* * *

 

Mai finally caught up with her family.

“What happened to you?” Zuko asked.

“I ran into her.”

Zuko didn’t need any more clarification.

“What happened?”

“We had a teary reunion and hugged it all out,” she said blankly.

Zuko frowned.

“It was awkward and then her daughter got her, so she made a quick exit.” If she had longer hair, she would have looked just like Ursa used to.

“We saw her today,” Izumi showed her father the doll. She was standing in the town square.

“Does she know?” Zuko mouthed.

“No.”

Azula represented everything Zuko had wanted to forget. He had done the right thing. He had won the war. Why was it that the ghosts of his pasts kept haunting him? Why was it that the anger and resentment from the past war just manifested itself in new ways?

Instead of a declared war and an official enemy, it was just street crime and unanticipated violence. It had everyone one edge. It made everyone afraid. The fear made Zuko angry and left him feeling hopeless.

* * *

They stopped by the Northern Air Temple on the way home, so Mai could visit Ty Lee.

“Do you like my doll?” Izumi showed her the small Azula.

Ty Lee’s eyes got big. “Where did you get such a nice doll?”

Izumi smiled. “In Ba Sing Se. They had lots of them at the festival!”

Izumi went to go play with the other children.

“She was here,” Ty Lee said to Mai.

“At the temple?”

“It was a layover. I tried to talk to her, but she just wanted to leave.”

“What were you going to say?”

“I don’t know, but I had to say something. She was our friend.”

“I know.”

“And then she wasn’t.”

“I know.”

“I thought she’d never be put back together again.”

“I did too.”

“But she made it somehow.”

“She did.”

“It makes me wonder if I should have tried harder.”

“It wasn’t your responsibility,” Mai told her.

“Then whose was it? It’s not like her family ever did anything about what went on in that palace. Who could have reached her if not us?”

Mai shook her head. “Someone reached her. Who, I don’t know. All we can do is move forward Ty.”

“Are we moving forward, are we just spinning circles? Sometimes, I don’t know which way is forward and which way is backwards.”

Neither do I.


	7. Chapter 7

**September 116AG**

Roku and Karrupa were now in middle school. They were big kids now. No more two a day recesses and now they would take finals.

They would play competitive sports and have longer days. All of this was fine. The one part they hated was history class.

“We’re going to do a unit on the 100 years war this trimester.”

From the first sentence, Karrupa knew he would hate the class. The teacher talked about how the Fire Nation had been evil but now they’re good thanks to the Avatar and the Fire Lord. It was total bullshit. People don’t just switch from bad to good like a light switch.

They got their “facts” that they had to memorize. This would not be a class for thinking or sharing opinions. This was just indoctrination to try and supersede the indoctrination of past years.

Their first homework assignment was to ask someone who was alive during the war what he or she remembered of it.

Roku asked their father. “What do you remember?”

“I remember being a cocky little brat who was all excited that he was going to marry Princess Yue and become the Chief. All I cared about was glory which I thought came from titles. When the Fire Nation attacked, I had a brigade there to defend the tribe. I thought we would win easily. Instead, my brigade failed miserably.

Yue died to save the moon spirit, and the Avatar drowned all the Fire Nation ships to avenge the angered ocean spirit, killing hundreds of people in just a few blows. War is horrible, and asking survivors to tell their stories for a middle school assignment is ridiculous.”

Roku wrote it down verbatim including what his father thought of the assignment.

Karrupa was afraid to ask their mother, but he knew he couldn’t turn in the same homework as his brother.

“What is it?” he had been staring for a while.

“I’m supposed to interview a survivor from the war for school.”

What a horrible assignment. “Did I ever tell you about when I conquered Ba Sing Se?”

“No.”

Azula narrated the story from the failed drill to the usurping of the Dai Li to fighting her traitorous uncle under the catacombs to her brother’s decision to join her. “We joined forces to kill the Avatar and stop his friends from taking the city.”

“All they talk about in school is how Zuko saved the world.”

“The winners tell the version they want to remember. Zuko spent three years trying to hunt the avatar. He tried to kill him before he decided to join him. He may be painted perfect now, but the truth is always uglier than what ends up in print.”

Karrupa wondered how ugly the truth was. He started to get an idea when he got called into the headmaster’s office the next day.

“What’s this about?”

“Your homework. You said here that the Fire Lord helped his sister conquer Ba Sing Se.”

“He did.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Because my mother was in the catacombs. She saw the whole thing.”

Of course, the textbooks made it sound like Zuko had been a deep cover or something, but he wasn’t. He was just trying to get his title back.

“And why would he help with that?”

“Because he didn’t want to be banished anymore. He wanted to come home.”

Of course, Karrupa’s teacher wanted him to redo his assignment. He refused.

“It’s not my fault that the textbooks sugar coat stories to that we can pretend that the winners were all good and the losers were all bad. I’m not going to lie to further your fantasy about the war.”

Karrupa got detention for “insubordination,” but he didn’t have to redo the assignment.

His mother told him to recite whatever garbage they gave him for his future assignments.

“But it’s not true.”

“Someday, you’ll realize that most of what you learn out in the world is lies that we make up so we can coexist without killing each other. Don’t think of it as giving in. Think of it as doing what you need to do to get out. There will be a time when you forget everything this teacher told you anyway.”

Karrupa didn’t like it, but he went along. His mother shouldn’t have to be all evil so her brother can be all good. She shouldn’t get 100 years of war dumped on her head when she wasn’t alive for most of it anyway, but she didn’t complain. If it’s what kept the world going, it was the penance she had to pay. Karrupa realized his mother was a toy soldier.

***

**November 116AG**

Election time came to the Fire Nation once more. Now, there was a new political group coming into play. They wanted to unionize the service industry and get higher wages. This would upend the Capital City. Restaurants would have to pay their bus boys more. Nobles would have to pay their servants more.

At first, no one took this party seriously. Why would they? They’re poor people, but if one rich man has ten poor servants and each man gets one vote, it is quite easy to get the servants vote to count more than the rich man’s, even if only half the servants vote.

A populist movement was rising in the Fire Nation. The Defenders of Sozin had still not gone away. The country was becoming a battleground, and people were carving up territory and staking their claims.

Zuko supported the populist group in principle, but when it came to hard guarantees, they had a problem

“We can’t afford a minimum wage of 10 ban an hour,” Zuko responded when they proposed it to him.

They seemed to take it lying down, but two months later, after they got the first populist representative in the Parliament, they started to organize a strike.

At first, it was maybe 5 servants picketing one restaurant. Then, it was 10 servants picketing two restaurants. Before you knew it, there were 50 of them out there.

Once it became popular, people started walking way from their jobs in restaurants and in houses.

Restaurants had to close. Noblewomen found themselves doing their own chores. People went to the police, ordering them to round up their employees and make them come back.

Even though indentured servitude had been outlawed in the Constitution, the police sided with the nobles and started arresting those who refused to work.

The servants reacted with violence, using homemade weapons to fight the police. Those who had been unemployed (many of them minorities) tried to cross the boycotts so they could work. They were met with violence.

The DOS and the Populist Movement began to merge. “It’s the dirty mudbloods! They’re stealing your jobs and ruining your pickets.”

* * *

 

By February, the country was at civil war. Everything was on fire.

Izumi was old enough to know what war was. She had been getting lessons about her father’s heroism in school, but if they could stop a 100 years war, why couldn’t he stop this one?

Aang came to try and stop the violence, but it was hard to know who was friend and who was foe. He was trying to protect the servants from the police and the immigrants from the servants.

The closest army was United Republic’s. Aang asked them for backup.

* * *

 

By April, they came to join the effort to restore Capital City to order.

Karrupa collected the headlines. His school made it sound like war would never happen again. He wanted to ram this paper down his teacher’s throat.

“Why are we at war?” Rei asked her mother.

“Your uncle Zuko lost control of the Fire Nation. Our country’s military went to help him keep the country from falling apart.”

“The Fire Lord’s my uncle?”

“He is,” Azula finally told her.

“How come we never visit him?”

“We both fought in the war, but we weren’t on the same side. His side won, and he had me locked away.”

“But you’re not in jail now.”

“I ran away.”

“I don’t want to meet him,” Rei decided.

“You don’t have to.”

The fighting lasted well into the summer. It was August when they declared that the conflict was over. Many of the people who had wanted higher wages were dead.

“I wonder how much money we spent on the war,” Mai said. “I bet it would have been cheaper to just pay them ten ban an hour.”

Zuko didn’t answer with words, but she was probably right. He really did think that the wars would stop, that everyone would be tired after 100 years, but apparently, there was still fight in people’s blood. He was at a loss.

**September 117AG**

They had a special guest speaker at assembly on Friday. The students all sat in their assigned seats and they waited for the principal to announce him.

“Boys and girls, I am excited to introduce Avatar Aang as our guest speaker. He’s here to talk to us about peace and harmony.”

“How lame,” Karrupa grumbled.

A teacher scolded him from a distance.

“Hi everyone.” He started talking about how his culture practiced peace and understanding and how this influenced the way he resolved conflicts.

He had cute stories, but Karrupa found the message somewhat lacking.

“And this is why if we all work together, we can avoid future conflicts.”

The kids started clapping. Some of them stood up right away.

“Does anyone have any questions for the Avatar?” the principal asked.

Most kids had silly questions like can I have your autograph or do you sell sky bison?

“Do you have any questions about his lecture?”

Most of the hands went down. Only Karrupa’s went up.

“Yes,” Aang called on him.

“You said we could avoid future wars with collaboration, but haven’t the past 17 years shown us that war is an inevitable consequence of being human?

Unlike most animals that leave the nest at a fairly early age and fend for themselves, we humans commit to our families and these families form neighborhoods, towns and then cities and countries. When we associate ourselves with so many people we need rules to govern how we behave which means we need people to enforce them.

This inherently puts some people in power over other people, and once people get a taste of power, they seldom want to give it up, which means they have a tendency to fight when their powers abut someone else’s power, which is always the case because no one just leaves a territory unclaimed when he can claim it.

People will always try to get as much as they can and eventually, they will encounter someone else who wants the same thing, which will cause a war. How can we really avoid war unless we just dissolve the governments and say every man for himself?”

Damn!

Karrupa was not an optimist by anyone’s standards. Everyone started whispering, wanting to know how Aang would respond.

He said that conflict will always exist, but people can pursue nonviolent means to resolve them, which will not completely eradicate war, but it will make it fewer and farther between.

The principal did not allow any more questions.

“That was rough,” Aang said when he got home.

“How they’re just middle school kids?” Katara was pregnant with Kya. She decided to rest at home while Aang gave his talk.

“This one kid suggested that the only way to end war was to dissolve governments, that war was inherent with human civilization.”

“So we should digress to anarchy? Wouldn’t that just leave all of the fighting to be done on an individual basis?”

“I think that was his point, that you can only shift where the fight happens, trying to stop it from happening is futile.”

“He doesn’t sound like one for world peace.”

“I don’t know what’s worse, that we have twelve year olds that jaded or that he’s probably smarter than most of his teachers.” Aang felt like his answer was a copout and that the kid knew it too.

Katara kissed him. “So this is harder than we thought it would be when we were that kids age. It doesn’t mean what we do doesn’t matter. It doesn’t mean that his world growing up is still much better than it would have been twenty years ago.”

“You’re right,” Aang told her as he kissed her cheek.

“Of course I’m right.”

***

The Principal did not take kindly to Karrupa’s question.

“What was that about?”

“What?”

“Your question.”

“He spoke about peace and stopping wars the whole time. I thought a question on the viability of his efforts relevant.”

“I do not want you making a mockery of these assemblies.”

“Is the point of these assemblies to get us to think critically or indoctrinate us so we’re like the same soldiers that got sent to kill for the Fire Nation?”

Karrupa got detention for a week.

Azula didn’t bother to tell him to stay in line. “You have every right to speak your mind, and in a fair society you wouldn’t get punished by your school for it, but we don’t live in that fair society. We just pretend we do.”

“So what about my Constitutional rights?”

“Lip service,” Azula told him. “It’s all just lip service.”

***

Rei and Minako were just starting to get into bending. Azula and Roku would teach them respectively.

“I’m surprised Karrupa’s not out here,” Azula told her other son.

“I think he’s all interested in political dissonance now. He’s been reading this book from the library.”

“Good for him.”

“You want him to be an anarchist?”

“I want him to be whatever he wants to be; same goes for all of you.”

Azula refused to pick their path for them. She refused to make them soldiers in whatever war was still waging in her mind.

Roku never knew how to reconcile the woman depicted in his textbook, and the mother who was right in front of him. She seemed so easy going, but she had apparently been one of the most feared fighters in the world. He couldn’t really imagine being afraid of her


	8. 20 Years Later

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roku and Karrupa have to write essays on world peace, 20 years after the Hundred Years War.

September 120AG

Roku and Karrupa were now in high school. By the end of the year, they would each pick a track: college, military, trade school, or business and the rest of their high school classes would help prepare them for it.

Roku raised his hand.

“Yes Roku.”

“I want to be a musician. Which track do I pick?”

“Well, you could study music in college, or you could learn how to manage your own finances doing business.”

“What if I just want to go start a band?”

“See me after class.”

He got that a lot.

Karrupa decided on college, so he could major in political history. He wanted to go into academia.

Rei and Minako were just starting school. They were learning how to share their toys with other kids and do basic math problems. It would be years before they had to think about how they would live their own lives.

Hahn no longer worked as a fisherman. The work was dangerous, and Azula had gotten a raise, making them even less dependent on his salary. Hahn took a much safer, albeit lower waged, job as a tram operator. He went up and down the same streets. It was 13 stops from one end of line to the other and then he went back. He went down and back twice each day with a lunch break in between. Then, his shift was over.

Each day, Hahn saw mostly the same faces: the commuters going to work, the elderly going to shop, and the transients trying to get to the food bank.

He found it odd that so many people shared the same tram ride every day, but they did not know each other at all. People read papers or sat in silence during the trip. Even when people came with companions, they seldom spoke except when it was time to leave.

Hahn had known everyone in his tribe when he was growing up. Now he lived in a huge city but knew fewer people. United Republic had so many people, but it had so little culture. Most people still identified with their ancestry and not their new nationality. There was no “sense of community” despite the politicians’ insistence that Republic City was a model for the rest of the world on peaceful living. It was a bunch of lip service as far as Hahn was concerned.

* * *

Later that month, they had some cheesy “We are the World” celebration, something about the 20th anniversary of the end of the war, and how we should all come together to start anew in Republic City.

In the elementary school, they all drew pictures of peace and happiness. Minako drew herself taking a nap, and Rei drew a basket of steam buns.

“How does this symbolize peace?” their teacher asked them.

“Naps are peaceful!”

“Mom makes steam buns for us, and we eat them as a family.”

“The assignment is on peace around the world.”

“But we’re seven. What do we know about that?”

* * *

Roku and Karrupa had to write an essay on the world 20 years after the war.

Roku decided to record a song for his essay. Music had changed greatly after the war. As people travelled to different nations, they brought instruments with them, creating new types of music and propelling the recording industry.

Roku had formed a band with a boy from the Earth Kingdom (drummer) and a girl from Ember Island (erhu player). Roku played the pipa, and they recorded a jam session for his essay.

Karrupa decided to write his essay in prose on paper. Surprisingly he was the one who got in trouble for his assignment.

* * *

 

Azula got called into the office.

“What did you do now?” Azula questioned. She did not like missing work because of shenanigans. Rei caused enough at her school. She got caught firebending in the bathroom, and it was a disaster.

“I don’t know. Roku wrote a song for his essay and he got a B+. He didn’t even use any words!”

She could tell Karrupa was freaking out. “It’ll be okay. Let’s just get it over with.”

The duo sat down in front of the principal.

“Your husband isn’t here?”

“I didn’t see any reason for both of us to miss work for this.” Hahn gets in trouble if he misses shifts.

“We’re here to discuss your son’s essay.”

“I’m aware. What is the problem?”

“Although your son’s essay was grammatically correct and well structured, we have issues with the content.”

“I assume you have a copy.”

“You didn’t read it before he submitted it?”

“I don’t micromanage my children.”

Karrupa smirked.

He handed over the essay.

World Peace is an Illusion: Twenty Years Later and the World Hasn’t Changed Much

Azula started to skim. Her son started with the obvious differences between her childhood and his, no draft, genocide, or hazardous pollution. He then goes on to say that none of these things have really changed. The Fire Nation still has a draft and forces people to enlist if they don’t get enough volunteers.

The killing of the workers during the Spring Revolution and the killing of the immigrants targeted by the workers were both genocides of sorts and to advance Republic City, the rest of the nation is stuck with the negative externalities of the toxic pollution.

Add the same racial hatred and mistrust of the Fire Nation, and it’s evident that the politicians are lying to us. There is no world peace and to make matters even worse, the textbooks we teach children with are a lie, fabrications designed to further this false dream. It’s the type of indoctrination that the Fire Nation used to fuel the war on the world and someday, the illusion is going to shatter.

“So what’s the problem?” Azula questioned as he handed it back.

“The essay was supposed to be about how much better the world is now.”

“What was the purpose of the essay?”

“I just said …”

“No, you said the topic, you didn’t say the purpose. Let me give you an example. I could write an essay on tomato carrots, but the content of my essay would vary depending on the purpose. If I’m writing an essay as a lobbyist and I represent tomato carrot farmers, then I am going to emphasize the nutritional aspects and encourage the reader to eat them.

If, however, I am writing as an environmentalist, and I’m concerned that over-farming tomato carrots has bad environmental consequences, then I might discourage their consumption.

You told my son to write an essay on peace in the world, but what was the purpose? If it was for his personal view on peace in the world, and you sought to encourage him to do his own research and form his own opinion, then his essay was very good.

If however, you sought to indoctrinate him into a false sense of security that most people have after a war until there’s another war, then it was very bad.”

The principal was stunned.

Karrupa smiled internally.

He didn’t have to rewrite his assignment.

* * *

 To make matters even worse for Karrupa’s principal, the three best essays from each grade got put into a pool, and they voted for the best one to be presented at the Humanitarian Awards they were doing in October.

Amongst the faculty, Karrupa’s essay was quite popular. He won the contest with 60% of the vote.

The principal begrudgingly gave him the award. “Your prize is that you get to have dinner with the world leaders before the Awards Ceremony.”

Karrupa raised an eyebrow. “You want me to eat with them?”

“No, but they decided on the prize before the contest started, so try not to embarrass me!”

October 120AG

Hahn took his son to get a new suit. “Hopefully, this is a good experience for you.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“It sounded like the right thing to say.”

“Maybe I should send Roku instead. He gets along with people better than I do.”

“That’s because he stays on conversation topics where he can find common ground. You say what you’re thinking, even if it makes other people uncomfortable.”

“Is that bad?”

“Your mother’s like that. You just have to find an industry where people pay for brutal honesty.”

“You think I should go into marketing?”

“Or consulting, or the law.  I would not advise you go into politics.”

“You’re probably right about that.”

***

“Who are you and what did you do with my brother?” Roku questioned. Karrupa’s hair had been cut short, actually allowing people to see his gold eyes. He was wearing a suit and he even had, “cufflinks?” Roku examined his arm. “You sold out bro!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I look absurd don’t I?” 

“No, I actually think you clean up nice. I’m just wondering how long you’ll make it before you get thrown out of this dinner.”

Azula snapped a photo. “I think history has been made. You hair hasn’t been this short since you were five years old.”

Minako heard the camera and ran out. “I want my picture taken!”

She was an attention whore. Azula humored her anyway, and then Hahn went to drop of Karrupa at this restaurant.

* * *

 

They had rented out a room for this affair. Karrupa was just expecting the room to have the world leaders and their bodyguards. Apparently, they also had their wives and who knows what other people. There were about 30 people around a giant table. They served the salads first.

His headmaster was there. “This is our prized pupil Karrupa.”

“Prized pupil? He’s always giving me detention,” Karrupa said candidly.

The headmaster frowned.

Sokka laughed. “Isn’t he a jokester?”

The others laughed too, assuming the boy was kidding.

* * *

 

Karrupa scanned the room. His uncle was absent, big shocker.

“What do you like to do for fun?” Katara asked him.

“I firebend.”

“Karrupa was born in United Republic,” the Headmaster told him.

“How do your parents like it here?” Sokka questioned.

“My mother said it beat the alternatives, and my father said he wants to move if they raise taxes again.

Sokka frowned. “It costs a lot to maintain the public services.”

“I’m sure it does, but many of the services only benefit a few people, like the transit system. My family lives too far away from it to take it to work. Why does it ignore half the city’s population?”

The headmaster looked angry. _Shut up boy!_

“How do your parents get to work?” Sokka questioned.

“They walk.”

“Have you been to the other nations?” Hakoda questioned.

* * *

“We visit our my dad’s sister in Ba Sing Se. We went to Ember Island a couple of times, but other than that, no.”

“Is your father from the Earth Kingdom?” Arnook added.

“No. He’s from the Northern Water Tribe.”

Arnook frowned. “Who’s your father?”

“Hahn,” he told him.

Sokka realized, this is Azula’s son.

“He ended up HERE?” Arnook had no idea why the boy ran off. “Why did he leave the tribe?” 

“His father disowned him for marrying my mother. My dad left and never went back.”

“Who’s your mother?”

* * *

  
Before Karrupa could answer, Zuko and Mai finally showed up. “Sorry we’re late.” They had issues with their carriage. Now that they arrived, everyone could finally move on to the main course.

They turned to see a boy staring at them quizzically.

“Our carriage broke down.”

The headmaster continued with the introduction. “Karrupa, this is the Fire Lord and the Fire Lady.”

“I never would have guessed.”

The headmaster glared at him.

“You didn’t think I’d recognize my own uncle?”

Arnook frowned in confusion. “How?”

“Azula is his mother,” Sokka told him.

“Hahn ran off with Azula?”

“He did.” That’s all Karrupa said on the matter.

* * *

If Zuko had bothered to read the packet explaining this dinner, he would have expected his nephew to be in attendance. He was busy and told his secretary to arrange his schedule. Now, he wished he had paid more attention.

“How did your parents meet?” Suki questioned

“My dad was working for a shipping company. He got paid double to deliver some machinery because a storm was coming. He thought he could beat the storm, but he didn’t. His ship capsized, and he got knocked out.

His crew carried him to the nearest house for help, and it happened to be my mom’s. She patched him up, and when his crew went to join a new shipping expedition after the store cleared, he decided to stay.”

A romance that happened because Hahn was a cocky opportunist and Azula was hiding out on Ember Island.

“Do you have any siblings?” Aang questioned.

“I have a twin brother and twin little sisters.”

“Two sets of twins?”

Karrupa shrugged. He hadn’t realized twins were unusual until he got to school and realized there weren’t any other twins there.

“Are you all firebenders?” Mai questioned.

“No. Roku and Minako are waterbenders.”

Aang didn’t have an airbender until last month. He didn’t really understand how bending got passed down. “None of Hahn’s children took after him.”

“Not in terms of bending. Roku looks like him, well sort of, and Minako acts like him. She loves to nap.”

* * *

Arnook commented that the tribe needed more waterbenders.

“If your society wasn’t so paternalistic, you would have an easier time convincing the existing waterbenders to come back.”

“Excuse me?”

“The fathers in your tribe have too much control. Their daughters are under their thumbs until they marry. Then they get passed off to their father in laws. Theirsons are under their father's thumbs until they die. All you need is a father who is a jerk and life there becomes unbearable.

It’s not surprising that people leave the tribe at twice the rate that they come in, which is why you don’t have enough waterbenders.”

Arnook was visibly angry, but his wife squeezed his hand, encouraging him not to react.

The Principal decided to change the subject. “Why don’t you tell us about your siblings?”

Karrupa tried not to roll his eyes. “Roku plays the pipa and recently formed a band.

Rei almost got suspended for firebending in the bathroom.”

“Why was she firebending in the bathroom?” Mai questioned.

“They recently banned students from bending in school until they’re nine for safety reasons, but my sister wanted to practice, so she would practice in the bathroom.

Another girl snitched on her, and they tried to suspend her, but my mother talked them out of it.”

“How’d she do that?”

“She said she’d pay for anything Rei burned down and a surcharge for inconvenience. So far, she’s only burned the hair of the girl who snitched on her and the monetary value was zero, so even with the 10% surcharge, it was still zero.” 

Sokka started guffawing.

“Why couldn’t she wait until after school to firebend?” Zuko questioned.

“She said her chi was too excitable. Her exact words were that “I would erupt like a volcano and die, and my epitaph should read, ‘Rei, the poor girl who could not firebend at recess.’”

 Rei had her mother’s charisma and penchant for fibbing. 

* * *

 

After dinner, there were drinks for the adults as they waited for the awards ceremony to begin.

Karrupa got stuck with the world leaders’ children in the room next door.

Crown Princess Izumi was there with Crown Princess Hou Ting, Bumi, and Kya.

“No one said I had to babysit,” Karrupa retorted.

“I’m not a baby,” Izumi insisted.

“They are,” he said looking at the other three children.

Bumi and Kya were running around. Hou Ting was sitting with a doll with her nose in the air. 

“I’m Izumi.”

“Karrupa.”

“What kind of name is that?”

“What kind of name is Izumi?” 

* * *

 

Before she could answer, the mothers came back to dote on their children. Bumi started rummaging through his mother’s purse for snacks. Kya was hanging on Katara’s leg, and Hou Ting demanded cookies.

Izumi just looked bored. Who knows how many award ceremonies she has attended in the past.


	9. War and Peace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karrupa says what he really thinks about the world 20 years after the war.

> There is the drowning that happens when you don’t know how to swim, but you jumped in the deep end anyway, and there is the type of drowning when someone else is holding you under. It’s like a vine around your foot, and when you go to untie it, you see that it’s been double knotted.

While the world’s elite were in the back getting ready, the stadium was packed with the various ticketholders: businessmen, celebrities, government officials, and the media to cover the event.

Karrupa’s family had been invited since he would be reading his essay aloud. Azula accepted the tickets, but declined the backstage passes. She did not want to be grouped with the world leaders. She was hoping to get out of this without having to talk to them.

After a few months maternity leave, Toph was back to the police force. She was working security for the event.

“Snoozles!” she punched his arm.

“Hey Toph. How’s it going?”

“Is it bad that I hope there’s a fight or something, just so I don’t get bored?”

“When has being bad ever stopped you?”

The lights dimmed, as they got ready to present. The MC came out to welcome everyone and introduce the 5th Annual Humanitarian Awards.

“This is a special moment for Republic City and the world. The war has been over for twenty years. The world has never been so peaceful.”

They had several awards: celebrity diplomat of the year (they represent various causes like world hunger), journalist of the year (who did the best coverage of issues involving war/peace), humanitarian of the year (usually a rich bloke who pours a lot of money into something), and a bunch of other awards the big kahuna, the Council’s Medal of Freedom (the one person who did something amazing for the world).

The ceremony started off as any other. A ballerina who collected funds for homelessness got the celebrity award. A photographer from the Capital City Times got the journalist of the year award. He took pictures all over the country documenting life from the richest to the poorest in the aftermath of the Fire Nation’s civil war. Satoru won the humanitarian of the year award.

Azula yawned. “This is so boring.”

Hahn was just trying to stay awake until his son spoke. Minako passed out, and Rei was playing with a small flame in her hands.

Finally, they took a break from the little awards to bring out Karrupa.

* * *

 

“This year, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the end of the war, we sponsored a contest where each high school student wrote an essay on how the world has changed over the past twenty years. This year, our winner is Karrupa from Republic City High School, and he is here to read his essay.”

Karrupa adjusted his tie before taking the stage. He was taller than the announcer and did not need to step on the stool.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I decided not to read my essay aloud for you today. When I wrote it, I didn’t expect to ever present it, and it doesn’t sound as good as it reads, so I decided to prepare a speech instead.”

The principal’s eyes widened. What is he going to do now?

“When I was five, I asked my mother for a General Gao doll. They were selling like hotcakes. Every little boy whose parents could afford it had one.

My mother, however, refused to buy it for me. She wasn’t cruel or stingy. She would have bought me any other toy in the shop, but she refused to buy that doll.

When I asked her why, she said “’war is bad. It represents the worst in humanity, and when people buy these dolls and give them to their children, they’re glorifying war. They are telling their children that it is good to put on a uniform and to kill, just because the state says so.

Your father and I both fought in the Hundred Years War. There’s nothing to glorify. There are no winners in war. There are loser and there are worse off losers. That is it.’

I had no idea what she was talking about. I had never thought about the war, and I had no reason to, the war was over. We were in a time of peace. Everyone was equal. Life was good.

There are a lot of things have changed since the war ended. People can travel freely. Villages don’t get burned down. Children don’t grow up as orphans because their parents were killed either in battle or trying to protect the home from conquering.

This is all good, but we are far from the post-war all is love society that we pretend we live in. The war was a culmination of social and political tensions fueled by greed, fear, racism and in particular racial superiority, the belief that one group would rule the world better than the other groups could rule themselves. None of these things have changed since the war ended.

The only difference is that things were flipped. The Fire Nation went from the top to the bottom and now they are on the receiving end of the bigotry that they perpetuated on the others. Instead of other nations trying to climb to the top, there is a concentrated effort to hold the people of the Fire Nation down.

Firebenders know this better than everyone else. In United Republic, the country celebrated as being inviting to everyone, there are no exceptions.

Firebenders face higher unemployment than any other demographic, even though their unique skills make them an asset in many fields. They wait the longest for travel papers to visit other nations. They are the three times as likely to be killed by the police than any other group and even though they are only 15% of the population in Republic City, they make up half of its prison population.

To make matters even worse, this discrimination reaches our children and permeates our schools. Firebending children are twice as likely to get suspended or expelled than other children for misconduct. No child is perfect. All of them get in trouble now and then but when a waterbender does something bad, it garners laughs and detentions. If a firebender does something bad, he gets threatened with expulsion.

I know this is true because I’m a firebender, and my brother is a waterbender. We’re twins, and we’ve been in the same school our whole lives. We’ve pulled our fair share of pranks, taping notes to teacher’s backs and asking silly questions that eat up class time, but we’ve never gotten into fights or anything like that.

When Roku does something stupid, he gets laughs and maybe an hour’s worth of detention.

The first time I got in trouble, and I got in trouble for writing a history paper that my teacher disapproved of the facts I cited, I got detention for a week. The next time, they threatened to suspend me, and the time after that, they were considering sending me to alternative school. I was eleven years old, and the state was already ready to brand me a delinquent.

My sisters are seven years old. They just started school last month. My sister Minako is a waterbender. She pranked her teacher by using her bending to prevent the teacher’s cup of water from flowing. When she stopped, the teacher ended up with water all over her face. She laughed it off.

Her twin Rei is a firebender. When she got caught firebending at school, she wasn’t threatening anyone or burning anything, she wanted to practice, they threatened to suspend her for two weeks. She’s seven. How many seven year olds do you know who do exactly what they’re told?

The consequence of living in this post-war world is that flame holders like me are raised to believe that we are inferior to everyone else. That we have to avoid conflict or confrontation at all costs because no matter what actually happened, it will be deemed our fault that we have to pursue perfection, or we’ll never make it anywhere and that we should be afraid because we have targets on our back.

We are the victims of fear, longstanding fear, and the world leaders who proclaim peace have done nothing to assuage it. They just offer us lip service. The Fire Nation was hit with heavy sanctions after the war ended. These sanctions made it harder for people to eat and pay rent. The Crown didn’t lower taxes at all. They didn’t decrease their spending.

They continued to live like fat cats at the expense of their people. They had the same dinner parties, staff size, and fancy food. They started a war for greed, and when it was time to pay up, they sent the burden to everyone beneath them. The Crown was greedy then, and it’s greedy now. Nothing’s changed.

The Nobility didn’t want to bear the weight alone, so they pushed it down to the farmers and other lower waged workers. The lower class struggled then and struggles now because the nobility, which is being pulled down by the Crown, is pulling it down.

They responded by retaliating against the poor immigrants that came to the Fire Nation looking for work. They sought to attack someone weaker than themselves because they were afraid of being at the bottom of the totem pole. Fear just begets hatred, which leads to war.

When the most recent War broke out, our nation went to fight. Our men were sent not to keep the peace and solve the problems that lead to the war but to kill those who refused to get in line. That war was a genocide, but unlike those in the hundred years war, it was a genocide where the sovereign sponsored the killing of his own people. Twenty years later, and it feels like very little has changed.

Years ago, I asked my mother why I don’t know her side of the family. She said to me that there are two types of drowning. There is the drowning that happens when you don’t know how to swim, but you jumped in the deep end anyway, and there is the type of drowning when someone else is holding you under. It’s like a vine around your foot, and when you go to untie it, you see that it’s been double knotted.

Again, I had no idea what she was talking about until our house got broken into two years ago.

My father was at work, he had been a fisherman at the time, and my sisters had a sleepover with our cousin, so it was just my mom, my brother, and I. I started to radio the police, but my mother took the radio and said it was unnecessary.

She went downstairs, and there were two 12-year-old boys trying to take anything of value and fit it in their large sacks. My mother told them to put her stuff down and one of them threw a flame at her head. She blocked it easily, and when they saw her blue flame, they knew who she was.

The earthbender started freaking out. ‘She’s gonna kill us. We just broke into Azula’s house, and we’re gonna die!’

My mother told him to calm down before he hyperventilated. She got them to sit down at our kitchen table and asked them why they broke in.

‘We cased the house earlier, and we thought it was empty,’ the firebender said.

‘Well that explains why you picked this house, but it doesn’t explain why you would break into any house.‘

‘We don’t have any food,’ the other one said. ‘We had been in a homeless shelter, but they kicked my brother out, and I left with him.’

When she asked him why he got kicked out, he said, ‘they saw me firebending. I was just heating up the soup they gave me because it was cold, but there was a strict no bending rule, so I got kicked out.’

Apparently, the no bending rule only applied to firebenders. The other kids made earth castles in the back and no one complained.

Before that, they had been in foster care, but their foster parents were violent, so they ran away. They couldn’t enroll in school without an address, and they were too young to get jobs and had no working papers.

My mother gave them the yuan from her purse and the food in our fridge. She found my father’s old clothes and let them take anything that fit. She suggested they take a ferry out of the city. If they get to a rural area, they should be able to get a job without papers, and if they can get farm jobs, they can probably stay in a room there.

They left in the morning and when I asked my mother why she didn’t just turn them in for thievery she said, ‘they weren’t stealing because they wanted to hurt me. They were stealing because the world left them no other options. They weren’t drowning because they recklessly decided to jump. They were drowning because our society was holding them under. If they had both been earthbenders, they would have been in safe homes and enrolled in school.’

I said that wasn’t fair and she said, ‘the most oppressed people are the people who falsely think they are free. Oppression hurts everyone because you can be on top one day and on the bottom the next. You never know you’re in trouble until it’s too late.’

Suddenly, everything she ever told me finally made sense. As long as there is oppression, there is a reason to rebel and if there is rebellion there will be war and if there is war than the state will use its power to conscript its people to suppress whoever is trying to fight it. It will use its citizens to hold down those who are drowning. The saddest part is that the people do this in the name of freedom. They do this because we teach them that it is right to use your power to crush those who are different. We start this lesson by giving our children toy soldiers, and it only gets reinforced as they grow up.

We tell ourselves that things are different now, that we are at peace that we are free, but it’s all pretend. There were wars before the great one and there will be wars after it. There will always be someone at the top of the social sphere and someone else at the bottom.

The best thing you can do is to look out for those beneath you. One day, you might find yourself at the bottom of the totem pole, and if you don’t think you should have to help anyone beneath you, then who do you think should help you if you should fall?”


	10. Reactions

Karrupa bowed and left the stage. The crowd was stunned into silence at first, but one brave soul started clapping, then it was two, and then a few more and by the end of it there was a standing ovation. You didn’t have to agree with Karrupa’s ideas to appreciate him, many of the audience didn’t, but this kid was real, in a way most people weren’t used to hearing.

It took some time to get the audience back under control. They still had an awards’ show to finish.

The world leaders’ reactions ranged from baffled to furious. 

Hakoda had paid the least attention to Republic City. It hadn’t been his project, and he seldom went to it, so he was not personally offended by the teenager’s rant against the nation. 

Arnook had been offended by what the boy said earlier, but he couldn’t help but realize this kid had a fire in him, one his father and grandfather had lacked. Ironically, he thought the boy could make a good chief with some training. 

Kuei was concerned about the state of affairs for minors in Republic City. How many youth are in these homeless shelters? Where are they supposed to go if they’re thrown out?

Zuko was furious about the way he had been portrayed. His nephew effectively said he was no better than his father; he only oppressed a different category of people. Zuko had fought so hard for peace. The little brat had no idea what he had been up against. 

The Council was not pleased with the way Karrupa depicted their city. 

Aang was stumped yet again. He had done so much to try and make this world more like the one he had known before the world, but there was so much tension in the world. Karrupa wasn’t wrong about that. The fear, the loathing, the conflicts, the world was a hotbed right now. Aang had no idea where to start when it came to all of the problems that Karrupa cited in his speech. He knew his job with Republic City wasn’t done yet. It was just getting started.


	11. Chapter 11

Four Years Later

September 124AG

“Are you ready for school?” Azula called at her daughters. It was time for them to go.

“Yes, Mama!” Rei was running down the stairs. Minako was running late.

“MINAKO!”

She overslept. “Coming Mama!”

Five minutes later, Minako arrived.

“You best run,” Azula gave them their lunch boxes.

When Karrupa and Roku were in school, you would get suspended if you were late too many times. Rei and Minako were luckier. Republic City recently passed a law to ban suspensions and expulsions for kids in middle and elementary school. The Council hoped that more firebenders would graduate from school and enter the work force instead of going to jail and becoming hardened criminals. By banning the practice all together, the policy can be sold as “race neutral.”

***

The two girls both slid into class right after the bell rang.

“Why are you late?” the teacher growled.

“I overslept,” Minako offered.

“Be more mindful next time.”

Things weren’t perfect, but they were improving.

“Let’s take it from the top.”

* * *

 

Roku’s band Earth, Ice, and Fire, was practicing for its latest show. The group would be performing for Princess Hou Ting’s birthday party. She was too young to appreciate who they were, but this was one of the biggest gigs you could get. There would be hundreds of people there.

The young pipa player was doing exactly what he wanted with his life: travelling the world, playing for fans, and chasing skirts; like his father, he was a natural flirt.

After Ba Sing Se, they would be going to Gaoling, Kyoshi Island, and Whale Tail Island.

***

Karrupa was in his third year at United Republic University. He had offers from multiple schools, but he wanted to do his research in the city that shaped him, for better or for worse.

He was studying social science and political theory. He hoped that his words would inspire young minds, and that someday, the world would have the change that it desperately needed.

* * *

 

Azula was too skeptical to think the world would ever really change. She just hoped her kids would survive it. 

 


End file.
